No Evidence Of Collusion Between Donald Trump, Russia: US Lawmaker

A congressional panel so far has found "no evidence" that US President Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Russia during the 2016 election, its chairman said on Sunday, ahead of testimony by the head of the FBI on the US president's potential Russia ties.

Based on "everything I have up to this morning - no evidence of collusion," by Trump's team and Moscow, Representative Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, told Fox News.

Mr Nunes made his remarks one day before Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey is to face lawmakers on the panel, amid speculation that Trump aides and associates - and perhaps even the businessman-turned-politician himself - may have maintained uncomfortably close ties with Moscow.

Monday's hearing was also expected to address a second explosive issue: Mr Trump's unsubstantiated accusations of wiretapping by Barack Obama - charges that have roiled political waters in Washington for the past two weeks.

Mr Trump on March 4 tweeted that Mr Obama had "tapped" his phone - a charge that has consumed political debate in the US capital.

The US intelligence community has publicly blamed Russia for hacks of the Democratic National Committee last year, and suggested the cyber-attacks were aimed at steering the election to a Trump victory.

Moscow has denied involvement in the hacks, and Mr Trump has denounced the tumult over alleged Russia connections as a "total witch hunt."

A city obsessed with a baseless claim

But the question of whether Trump Tower was bugged - an accusation first lodged by the president on Twitter - nevertheless has risen to the top of Washington's political agenda, becoming something of a national obsession, even as a growing number of lawmakers and top US officials assert there is no evidence of any such claim.

The wiretapping issue mushroomed last month, when Mr Trump's national security adviser Michael Flynn was forced to resign after it was revealed he had misled top officials over his contacts with Russia.

Around the same time, The New York Times reported that US intelligence agents had intercepted calls showing that members of Mr Trump's campaign had repeated contacts with top Russian intelligence officials in the year preceding the November 8 election.

Mr Nunes has said that the intelligence committee probe focuses in part on who revealed the fact that Mr Flynn had unreported private contacts with the Russians over the issue of international sanctions against Moscow - a disclosure which led to his forced resignation as Mr Trump's national security adviser.

Adding to the intrigue, Mr Trump's attorney general Jeff Sessions had to recuse himself from any Russia-related inquiries after it was learned that he had met twice with the Russian ambassador in the months before Mr Trump took office, and had failed to disclose this during his confirmation hearing.

Trump's credibility takes a hit

Domestically, the headline-grabbing controversy over the wiretapping claim has pulled attention away from Mr Trump's effort to push through other key items on his agenda, including the planned repeal of Mr Obama's healthcare law, tax reform and his controversial travel ban.

Critics say it has also debased the already-coarse tone of political debate in Washington and eroded the president's credibility at home and abroad.

Some of the fallout has been international in scope: The White House was forced to retract a charge repeated last week by its spokesperson Sean Spicer suggesting that Britain's intelligence services aided the Obama administration in the alleged wiretap. That claim has strained relations with America's closest ally.

Still, as recently as Friday, Mr Trump repeated the baseless claim in an aside during a White House press conference with Angela Merkel.

"As far as wiretapping, I guess, by this past administration, at least we have something in common, perhaps," Mr Trump told the German chancellor, referring to a WikiLeaks report in 2015 that the US had monitored calls involving Ms Merkel and her top aides for years.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz - Mr Trump's vanquished rival last year for the Republican presidential nomination - said the wiretapping charges are not entirely "outlandish" and should be investigated.